Saturday, May 31, 2014

TORONTO – Sometimes my trips are so quick that the biggest
challenge for a run is finding the time. Toronto proved especially tight. We
arrived at our downtown hotel here at 9:45 p.m. We were leaving the next day at
11:30 a.m. – less than 14 hours in all.

When we arrived, I still had several hours of writing to do,
so I wasn’t going out. The next morning, meetings started at 7 a.m. and
continued until departure. I went to bed at 1:30 a.m., and set the alarm for 5
a.m.

If I wanted to run in Toronto, that was my slot. The only
reason I did it: What’s the difference of sleeping an hour longer? I still
would be tired. And I wouldn’t see a slice of Toronto.

I was out of the hotel at 5:15 a.m. and adopted my usual
strategy when I don’t know a city: Out and back, run on one road and then retrace
my steps. I couldn’t get lost.

I headed east on Front Street. Construction crews were on
almost every block in the first few minutes; they wore hard hats and orange
safety vests and some drove little fork lifts. The streets, though, were mostly
empty, and I remembered why I liked running in cities before dawn – the quiet
and the absence of cars.

These early morning hours of peace in a city are a rare
treat, experienced mostly, I guess, by people who work overnight shifts, or
those who stay for last call, or runners or walkers with insomnia or an
exercise addiction.

At this hour, Toronto was a small town with skyscrapers. I
felt calm (if groggy) as I passed a shoe shop, restaurants, a pet shop, and the
Hockey Hall of Fame (a Beaux-Arts styled building). Even a local coffee shop
hadn’t opened. Nearly all cities are runnable at 5 a.m., but an hour later some
aren’t, and by 7 a.m., most are difficult because of traffic.

About a mile into my run, I saw a sign for the waterfront,
and changed my plan, turning right off Front. The road went under the Gardiner
Expressway and then dead-ended at Lake Ontario.

But right in front of me was an odd-looking area: an expanse
of white sand, umbrellas and Adirondack-like chairs – a beach, but one that
didn’t seem to have access to the water.

I saw a sign: Sugar Beach was its name, established in 2010
as a waterfront urban public space for relaxation (and not for swimming). I ran
on the white sand and sat down on one of the chairs. I had Sugar Beach to
myself. I resisted the opportunity to take off my running shoes and wiggle my
toes in the sand, but did close my eyes. I thought of myself on some distant
white-sand beach in the Caribbean. It was a very pleasing thought, and I could
feel sleep coming. So I wrested myself out of the chair, bid farewell to Sugar
Beach, ran a bit more on the waterfront,
took some turns, found Front Street, evaded an attack black squirrel that
seemed for a second would bite my leg, and arrived at my hotel. Six o’clock
sharp. Blood flowing. Better to have run than slept.